Archive for month: November, 2016

Some 100 people concerned to change the face of mental health care in this country gathered for an inspiring one-day conference run by Compassionate Mental Health, that gave people the chance to hear leading voices in this urgent debate that has, finally, forced itself on to the agenda and to share their own experiences and hopes.

Only I didn’t know it at the time, because it was all I knew. I suspected something was wrong; the suicidal yearnings and impulses to self-harm were good tell tell signs, but I didn’t understand them as such. I thought I was being selfish and attention seeking, and I did what I could to try and control these shameful things that lived inside me.

I never intended to forgive the two young men who gang raped me when I was 13 years old. I wanted to hate them forever. As far as I was concerned they were evil, sadistic animals and I wanted someone to kidnap them, tie them up, beat them up, rape and torture them just like they had done to me for hours on end.

http://compassionatementalhealth.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/curl1-noresize.jpg7001700Brigid Bowenhttp://compassionatementalhealth.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SmallLogo3402.jpgBrigid Bowen2016-11-06 23:35:482016-11-09 00:35:23What It Took For Me to Forgive by Madeleine Black

“The people that I work with and the patients that I serve may not remember my name, but they will certainly remember how I made them feel,” said a nurse interviewed in a recent BBC News report on compassion in healthcare.

As far back as I can remember I have experienced times of intense sadness. Feeling like a heavy weight is dropped into my solar plexus, and at the same time as if some creature is clawing at my insides.

It makes me feel exhausted and restless at the same time; exhausted with the unexplainable emotional pain and too restless to make it shift.